


Under the Ocean

by TheseusInTheMaze



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Angst, Grief, M/M, Post-Movie, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-28
Updated: 2013-08-28
Packaged: 2017-12-24 21:31:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/944881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheseusInTheMaze/pseuds/TheseusInTheMaze
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Herc Hansen hates Raleigh Becket. He knows it's irrational. He hates that almost as much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Under the Ocean

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know if I have the best grasp of the canon, but this story has been knocking around my head since I rewatched the movie.

Sometimes, Herc Hansen hates Raleigh Becket. He wishes he doesn’t – he wishes he could look at that handsome all American face and not want to break Raleigh’s teeth, but he can’t, because he heard his son die God only knows how many miles of water, and Raleigh didn’t die. Sometimes he ponders why he doesn’t hate Mako Mori – maybe because she’s grieving as well. She was just as trapped at the time, when her father died. Her second father. He doesn’t hate her, he just pities her, and feels something akin to rage. But Raleigh Becket – he hates him. He didn’t lose anything under the ocean.

Herc knows how irrational that is, on just about every level, and sometimes he laughs at that in the privacy of his bunk, in the days after the collapse of the Breach. He clings to Max with one hand while the bulldog licks the salt off of his face, and he laughs like a mad thing. it was for the greater good, and he knows that. He knows that there will be children born who aren’t afraid of the Pacific Ocean, and he knows that in fifty years, the dead Kaiju are going to be right there with the dinosaurs. If Chuckhad actually survived, who knows? Maybe they would hear about how their dad and granddad fought off the evil menace from beneath the ocean.

Then Herc rolls his eyes at his own sentimentality and tries to do something productive, because that kind of sentimentality. Among other things, he knows that Chuck would never charm a woman enough to want to marry him, or have a child. As much as he loved (loves?) his son, he knows his weaknesses. He also knows that there’s possibly someone wandering around out there with one fourth of Herc’s DNA (sharing a head with someone means you see everything, including the bits they don’t want you to, and anyway, who doesn’t want to fuck a Jaeger pilot?), but he usually doesn’t think of that. That isn’t what being a father is about. He knows he did it wrong.

And when he sees Raleigh’s big, friendly face, the fist on his good hand balls up, and he tastes something like copper in the back of his throat, and he walks away. Maybe it’s the new grief, although he’s felt grief before. This is new. He hates it, the way he hated the kaiju that killed his wife. It’s been less than a week. It’s been less than a week since the whole room cheered and he shouted to take down the clock.

It hurts. The grief hurts, and Herc is beginning to understand a little bit of Chuck’s temper. Or maybe he always had it, or picked some of it from the Drift. He wonders, faintly, what will become of all of the Jaegers and the Drift and the half a billion other things that were built around the kaiju, directly or otherwise. The people who made the little joints that connected one strand of muscle fiber in a Jaeger to another. The Hannibal Chaus of the world. But he walks through the halls of the Shatterdome with Max’s leash in his good hand, and he is amazed that the grinding of his teeth isn’t echoing through the halls. He wants to hit things. He wants to hurt things. He wants to climb into a Jaeger (but climbing into a Jaeger would mean he was beside Chuck, and if Chuck were here than this wouldn’t be a feeling in the first place) and destroy things.

And maybe because it’s the middle of the night and even the most enthusiastic aren’t celebrating (or else celebrating privately), but the halls are quiet, and it’s a measure of exactly how distracted Herc is, because he nearly walks into Raleigh, and that just makes him madder, and he can’t even pretend to smile, because he can feel the rage and the grief inside of him, like copper wire just under his skin. So he nods at Raleigh and attempts to walk around him in the narrow hallway.

But Raleigh is a big, dumb idiot, and Herc should have known that, because he is actually reaching out and putting a hand on Herc’s shoulder, a concerned look on his face.

“Are you alright?” Raleigh’s voice is soft, and he’s looking Herc earnestly in the face with an expression that’s eerily like Mako’s, and that’s unsettling in its own right, because Herc has seen Mako grown up, and he knows her like a niece. “I mean… how are you doing?”

The fact that that’s coming out of Raleigh’s mouth – Raleigh, who is probably the last person alive who Chris ever talked to – makes the grief boil over, makes the rage thrum through Herc like an electric shock, and he practically jerks forward, grabbing Raleigh by the collar of his stupid sweater (dropping Max’s leash in the process), his bad arm crushed between them. He wants to jam his forehead into Raleigh’s nose and break that fucking nose, maybe shatter a few teeth.

He isn’t expecting himself to kiss Raleigh. He doesn’t know why he does it – he isn’t usually one for blokes, and he’s never been one for physical demonstration, but he’s kissing Raleigh Becket, clinging to him, and his teeth are digging into Raleigh’s low lip, and his face is streaked with wetness, and he hates that, and he hates himself for it. He hates Raleigh for seeing him like this, but what he hates most of all… he hates the way one of Raleigh’s hands is cradling the back of his head, he hates the way Raleigh’s other hand is on his shoulder, pulling him closer. He hates that Raleigh is kissing him back.

Herc pulls back and stares at Raleigh’s face, and he sees… he sees something like understanding there, and he scowls, because he doesn’t want Raleigh’s pity. He doesn’t want to see recognition in that stupid puppy dog face.

“What?” Herc attempts to pull back, but Raleigh is still holding on to him, and he wishes that he had both of his arms. He wishes he knew why he doesn’t want to be let go, and why he wants to claw his own skin off wherever Raleigh is touching him.

“I… I get it,” says Raleigh awkwardly, and he bites his lip, looking Herc in the eyes with a super concentrated expression. “I mean… I know it hurts.”

“Good on you, mate,” says Herc, and his voice is harsh in his own ears. “You want a fucking medal?”

Raleigh’s expression doesn’t change, exactly, but there’s something different. He looks… hurt, and Herc hates himself almost as much as he hates Raleigh, because why the hell would he want to hurt Raleigh? It makes him… he doesn’t know. He doesn’t think about feelings. He doesn’t talk about them.

“C’mon,” says Raleigh, and he has one hand on Herc’s shoulder. He lets go for a moment, leaning down to pick up Max’s leash, and then he’s holding onto Herc’s shoulder again.

“Where are we going, exactly?” Herc doesn’t know why he’s agreeing to all of this. If he’s agreeing to all of this. What he’s agreeing to in the first place.

“We’re going to go to my bunk,” says Raleigh, and he’s walking calmly in the direction he was walking when Herc bumped into him. “And maybe we’ll fuck or maybe we’ll talk, or… who knows.” He looks over his shoulder at Herc, and Herc doesn’t know if he wants to kiss Raleigh again, or if he wants to rip his fucking hair out. But he follows, because he doesn’t know what else to do, and he feels a bit like he’s trapped deep beneath the ocean, without the safety of a Jaeger around him. He’s never shared his head with Raleigh, and he doesn’t know what he’s feeling, but he follows, because he doesn’t know what else to do.


End file.
